Steam Client Update Released

A new steam client has been released and is being automatically downloaded.

Update: this client was released again on Dec 15 with additional fixes for newly reported issues.

General

New feature: Shader Pre-Caching. Whenever possible, depending on hardware and driver support, Steam can download pre-compiled shaders for your specific video card. This reduces load times and in-game stuttering during the first few launches of OpenGL- and Vulkan-based games on supported hardware. This feature may use a small amount of additional bandwidth as Steam uploads and analyzes a shader usage report after each run of the game. The feature can be disabled via a new entry in the Settings dialog.

Fixed a UI issue that made it difficult to install new games if a previous installation dialog box was still active

Fixed several rare crashes and hangs reported by customers

Updated web views to Chromium v62.0.3202.62

Windows

Fixed an issue where the Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR drivers would sometimes not install correctly

Fixed a bug where launching a game could cause the primary monitor to switch as if Big Picture mode were active, even though it is not

macOS

Fixed a crash on startup that could occur if a different application was previously set to autostart, and then did not clean up its autostart entry correctly

Linux

Fixed creating desktop and application menu shortcuts

Added detection and a workaround for certain titles that shipped with broken Steamworks SDK libraries

SteamVR

Fixed the occasional brief appearance of a blank console window when starting Steam or launching a VR game.

Steam Input

Changed Per-Game Steam Input opt-out setting to allow Force On or Force Off per game in addition to the global controller type based settings. This means you can turn on configuration for a single game while globally leaving configuration settings off.

Added “Launcher Mode” for controllers which are not opted in to Steam Input Configuration. If we detect that the game is in a launcher, the right stick and right trigger will act as a mouse/trigger respectively, allowing the user to navigate the launch with a controller until they get into the game proper. This feature can be disabled by selecting the “Force Off” option in controller settings for the game in the Big Picture controls.

Added "Always On" binding for setting bindings to take effect when an action set or layer is enabled. This can be used to set up modifier keys that are always active in a layer, changing LED brightness or color based on a set or layer, etc. and can also interact with activators to do start press behavior or turbo, for example.

Added new tab in Configuration Browser for configs exported by your Steam Friends. These configs will now also show up in the community tab even if they would otherwise not qualify to be shown when ranked by votes or playtime. Note that only exported configs will show up, not personal configs.

Added an "Empty Binding" binding action intended for use in layers. Essentially this is a special binding that does absolutely nothing, so bindings can be removed from a layer, as the default state of layering "nothing" means use whatever is below that layer. This special binding can also be detected by radial menus and will eliminate that item from being available in the menu.